Most people who have spent time in a kitchen will tell you that baking and cooking are fundamentally different crafts: the former tends to follow strict formulas that require absolute precision while the latter is largely adaptable and often intuitive.

But New York-based Natasha Pickowicz, a four-time James Beard Award-nominated American pastry chef and cookbook author, argues the two are more alike than many think, citing similarities between making artisanal pastries and Chinese hotpot.

Born in San Diego to Li Huai, a visual artist from Beijing, and Paul Pickowicz, a European‑American Chinese film historian, Natasha Pickowicz was raised on “very culturally specific foods,” a background that shapes her cross‑cultural culinary perspective.

She says her mother is “a phenomenal cook” who works instinctively and influenced her own “confidence and free-form nature” in the kitchen.

Pickowicz never planned to become a chef. After graduating with a degree in English Literature from Cornell University in New York state, she moved to Montreal, Canada, where she got a job as a baker through a friend.